


odi et amo

by lairdofthelochs



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, First Time, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 09:38:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12296460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lairdofthelochs/pseuds/lairdofthelochs
Summary: Alfie Solomons is a contradiction, and Tommy hates him even more for it.





	odi et amo

**Author's Note:**

> I binge-watched Peaky Blinders in one week and I know that this is a rare pair, but I couldn't get the idea off my head. Set post s3 and pre s4, and written as an introspective piece from Tommy's POV, consider this a love song to Alfie Solomons.

 

 

 

 

 

>   _"I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask. I don’t know, but I feel, and I’m tormented."_
> 
> _-_ Catullus 85
> 
>  

* * *

 

Alfie Solomons is a contradiction.

He is everything Tommy isn’t – physically, emotionally; reminding himself of what he could have been but chose not to. He is broader, seems taller although sometimes Tommy swears they are of the same height. He is coarse, loud, and when he speaks he takes you through a thousand irrelevant anecdotes and metaphors before finally getting to the point. And when it comes, Tommy isn’t ready for it. He hates the feeling of always needing to guess, always being steered by this menacing beast of a Jew to a destination he hasn’t even agreed to arrive.

Alfie Solomons is a contradiction, and Tommy hates him even more for it.

Tommy has met different types of adversaries in his lifetime- on the battlefield at the Somme, in the suave delicacies of Billy Kimber’s narcissism, of Darby Sabini’s perfectly pressed suits. He finds them in the duality of Major Campbell, or Grace’s steadfastness. He finds them in the most unexpected places, such as the demons inside him who are awakened when he goes to sleep. All of these foes are different from him, and different from one another – so why does Alfie Solomons stand out so much like a sore thumb?

Tommy hates him for being so vastly different – where Tommy’s vanity comes from how he dresses, in his razored hat, the sharp suits, the haircut, Alfie doesn’t give a fuck about how he looks, maybe doesn’t even bother to comb his hair when he gets out of bed, with rolled-up sleeves of his stained white shirt, a testament of another day’s work well done. His bow-legged walk is a contrast to Tommy’s steady strut, and lately Alfie has been swinging his cane about— as if to show Tommy that he’s getting older, that he’s a human being with ailments. As human as Tommy had been when they first met, with bruises on Tommy's cheekbones and blood trickling down his nose.

He remembers their first meeting vividly, in that distillery in Camden Town. Tommy didn't think he could be scared of the man, so his first impression when Alfie came walking towards him, telling Ollie to let him go because he’s only _little_  – Tommy didn't know what to make of Alfie. He was difficult to read, the way he stared Tommy down, expecting a verdict on his rum. The way his gaze followed the glass as Tommy swirled the liquid around, the way he watched Tommy gulp it down; the way Alfie pursed his lips, considering, frowning. Tommy remembers feeling amused by Alfie’s reaction to his answer, but that feeling was only fleeting. He has wanted to smile, but he’s forced himself not to. And when Alfie sat him down in the office with that gun pointed at his face, Tommy has never hated anyone else more in the world, not even Major Campbell.

Even as Alfie threw him a handkerchief, as if disgusted by the bloody sight in front of him, with that gun still entrained on Tommy – he realizes that all he wanted was to impress the man, to tell him that _‘I’m good for you, I’m going to save you from Sabini, and then we’ll take over London together’,_ before Tommy caught himself and thought, _this is never going to happen._ There is no room for Alfie Solomons and Tommy Shelby together in this accursed town, there can be no two rulers in the land. Alfie understood that from the get go. Tommy didn’t flinch, even as Alfie put away his gun and asked him to explain the plan, as if he has never threatened to split Tommy’s skull open, harping on and on about the cabinet behind Tommy, about sending him to Timbuktu.  Alfie is as abrupt as he could be desperately slow and directionless, and Tommy hates it that he could never read him.

The way Alfie shouted at his men, the way he just knocked that poor lad senseless to the ground. There was humour in the humourless way he had reacted to the lad’s humour. The way he has declared himself a sodomite, and while Tommy knew it was just a figure of speech—another irrelevant metaphor, yet there was no way of telling if Alfie actually meant it literally. Truth disguised as a lie, to disguise the truth.

Such is the genius of Alfie Solomons.

Tommy knows this about Alfie – that he riles people up to watch their reactions, which makes him wonder if it was what Alfie has tried to do to Tommy when he pointed that gun muzzle on his face, in that dank, whiskey-scented office, forever ago. Yet when he reflects on this further, he wonders if there was more to Alfie’s rant at his men, the fake hundred bakers whom have converged in Camden Town, while Tommy looked on, trying to maintain a straight face. Was he doing it to rile up the men, to see how they would react? Or was it purposely a show for Tommy, to see how _he_ would react – because Tommy was a _singularity,_ the steady rock to Alfie’s stormy seas?

When Alfie said  _Shalom_ to Arthur, in Tommy’s office the day he came to visit, when Alfie sat down with Arthur, and goaded him about God and religion, was he directing those words to Arthur, or was it to Tommy? Alfie admonished Arthur for believing in God, when he prided himself on being a Jew – and this is the part that bugs Tommy most, because he could relate.

Jews and Gypsies, held lowly by society, and yet here they are. The disgusting Gyppos and the disgusting Jews.

 _Watch us conquer,_ Tommy thinks, _watch us rule._

Alfie’s voice rises and falls, an unpredictable cadence, in as so many words to hide his true meaning where Tommy could say so much truth with only one look mired in silence. Alfie’s eyes are as grey and murky as the man himself, and Tommy’s eyes are the clearest blue, and in that moment they have never been more different than each other.

Tommy hates himself for being able to forgive Alfie, even after the man has double-crossed him twice. Once with Sabini, and once with that priest, and Tommy tells himself should there be a third time, he will not hesitate to shoot Alfie like he did with Billy Kimber. Michael has told him that killing Alfie won’t resolve anything, even as Alfie taunted that he should do it honourably, man to man. Even then, even as Tommy shouted at Alfie in desperation, he hated Alfie for being Alfie.

Alfie Solomons is a contradiction.

He is graceless where Tommy is graceful. A brute where Tommy is genteel. The very personification of the real person inside of Tommy, the dark side that he has tried so hard to control, through nights of opium and morphine. Through Grace and through Charles.

Tommy hates Alfie, because even after years of learning how to read the man like an open book, Alfie still manages to confuse the hell out of Tommy. Even as he managed to decipher that Alfie didn't actually _know_ about Tommy’s son, even as Tommy danced through the victory of figuring that bit out, he still doesn’t know why Alfie needed to pretend in the first place.

And then Tommy _does,_ and he hates Alfie even more.

He hates Alfie because he could see a part of himself in Alfie – the ugly callousness that he himself has been trying to hide underneath the clean-cut businessman image he is trying to sell to the world, because Alfie reminds him that he could never run from his past. Tommy hates him because Alfie hides underneath that veneer of roughness and volatility, to hide the softer core inside that would threaten to come out if he doesn’t keep himself in check. They both rule through fear, but while Tommy’s anger is silent, Alfie displays it through fanfare and noise – because he needs to hide the part of him that makes him vulnerable, the part that cares, the part that is gentle and kind. Because whereas Alfie’s temperament is as volatile and destructive as crashing waves, his invisible kindness is his anchor. A part that he doesn’t want to show to the world, and yet a part Tommy has somehow found.

As if Alfie _wants_ Tommy to find it.

He talks as if he doesn’t care for anyone, and yet when he let slip about his mother, about his anger towards the Russians, Tommy realized that there was more to Alfie than just a wandering Jew in search of a place to belong. He hides his face with that hat, with that beard, under the dry scaly skin on his face, as if he doesn’t want others to see him for what he truly is. The way his big, calloused hands holding his tiny glasses daintily as he peers at the documents in front of him, frowning, dissecting. Alfie talks as if he wants to be feared, and yet he shows off his limp, walking with that cane, as if to show that although he may be part monster, he is human and will die one day. That he is vulnerable. That he wants Tommy to take advantage of that vulnerability.

They talk of crossing lines.

This is one line he shouldn’t cross, but they are teetering close, dancing on the fine tightrope.  Watching, waiting for the other to fall head first into the bottomless pit below.

He hates Alfie Solomons.

In saying that, he hates himself.

There was a time when he needed Alfie purely as a business partner, and even then Alfie was untrustworthy.

He hates himself for letting his own feelings take over his mind, that Alfie is no longer the untrustworthy party.

It is Tommy himself.

He hates himself for letting Alfie confuse him. He hates himself because he still found joy in the acts of violence they had participated in the warehouse, despite being tormented by the loss of his son. He has wrestled Alfie to the ground though he knew he wouldn’t win. He hates himself because he found joy in Alfie’s confession about not knowing anything about Charles, and the satisfaction to say ‘I know’. That he revelled in some form of Pyrrhic victory, in letting Alfie know that he could read him, now, finally.

 _I_ _saw,_ Tommy's told him. 

 _I can see right through you_ are the words he's wanted to say, but didn’t.

Ada fears Alfie. This much he knows. He doesn’t think her hate equates to Tommy’s own version of hatred towards Alfie, in terms of quality or quantity. She warns him against Alfie, against other mishaps that he will put Tommy through in the future.

The _future._

In the future, Tommy will hate himself for shuddering— not at the sight of the familiar silhouette skulking towards him, not at the booming sound of Alfie’s voice echoing through Tommy’s atmosphere. No, Tommy will hate himself for shuddering at the sight of Alfie crouching down in pain if only to scratch his dog’s head fondly, hugging the slobbering beast close to his chest, letting the creature wrestle him to the ground. He will hate himself that he doesn’t shudder from fear, or disgust, but from something else.

He will hate himself that he is no longer indifferent towards Alfie, hating himself for letting his feelings swell into something stronger.

And yet, _now._

Now he sees Alfie holding Charles, making cooing sounds and smiling gleefully, not even perturbed or annoyed when Charles starts pulling at his greying beard, or trying to take off his black, wide-brimmed hat. He is not fearful of Alfie the way Ada is, and in this moment he trusts Alfie enough to care for Charles, because he could see it in Alfie’s eyes. He saw a flicker of it— of guilt, of remorse, on that day of fateful confrontation in that warehouse, and he sees it blossom into something else, now. Of genuine fondness and affection. Who knew that Alfie would be capable of feeling it, let alone showing it?

Alfie Solomons is a contradiction.

Now, the rest of the Shelbys are incarcerated, out of Tommy’s own accord. But now is not the time to dwell on that. He has his plans, and they will play out their course soon enough. But now, Alfie and Tommy are alone in his study. No longer is Alfie talking about glasses and magicians, and seeing into the future. Now is the time for _now._

And now.

And _now._

“You know me, Thomas Shelby,” Alfie accuses, in that familiar, raspy intone. Out of nowhere. Abrupt. A challenge. What is it that he wants Tommy to do now?

Tommy replies the way he knows best. Pure silence. A stare-down. They are on equal grounds, now. Tommy doesn’t fear the repercussions of his insolence.

The disquiet stretches longer than expected. Maybe because Alfie doesn’t try to fill the silence with his deafening words, like he usually would under different circumstances.

“Do I?” Tommy replies, feigning ignorance. He takes a long drag of his cigarette, takes a sip of whiskey. Alfie watches him now the way he’s watched Tommy the first time they met. His gaze trails each movement, hand to mouth. Inhale. Exhale. Smoke billows in front of Tommy’s face, masking the tics of his eyelids. Hand to mouth. Sip. Swallow. The liquid burns his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He lifts his gaze up at Alfie, and holds it there. He doesn’t know what Alfie is more fixated on. His hand, or his mouth? Or both? He hates it that he doesn’t know.

“You _know_ me,” Alfie repeats, slowly, as if Tommy is a child. His voice is strangely calm – more of a revelation than a question. “Not many people do.”

Tommy stubs the cigarette in the ashtray. The same ashtray Arthur has gripped as Alfie questioned him relentlessly about God, the one that he could have used to beat Alfie with had Tommy not stopped him. Now Tommy is the one seated in the chair, and Alfie is the one standing, leaning back against the desk. Alfie Solomons, the man who owns a distillery and yet doesn’t drink.

A contradiction.

“So what is it to you?” Tommy quips. Annoyance bubbling in his gut.

To Tommy’s vehemence, Alfie merely shrugs. “It’s bad for business, innit? I can’t let you running around knowing my little secrets now, can I?”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“I don’t have your tricks, Tommy-boy. I don’t have a hand grenade. I have a gun-,” Alfie pats himself absentmindedly, "—here,” he says, pointing to the insides of his greatcoat, “—but it takes more than that to kill ya, innit?”

Tommy blinks slowly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I could kill ya, but I won’t. That ain’t right,” Alfie says, shaking his head, his brows knitted together as he pushes himself off the desk. Without warning, he takes the empty seat beside Tommy. The chair creaks as the weight shifts, and Tommy takes a sharp breath. In this light, Alfie looks older, so much older – and so much wiser.

“You ain’t tellin’ anyone what you know about me, Tommy Shelby, because you know better,” he says in a sing-song voice, before leaning forward, tilting his head conspiratorially. Alfie smells like peppermints and chamomile, sharp and gentle at the same time.

A contradiction.

“What do you want from me, Alfie?” Tommy asks, because he is tired of this game. He wants it to end, he wants Alfie to stop messing about. “We’re not friends, we’re barely business partners. For the most part I think you’re probably more enemy than friend.”

“A homecoming,” Alfie replies jubilantly, without preamble or hesitancy. “ _Galut_ is the word for exile in Hebrew,” he explains, like Tommy is a child at school. “I’m a Jew in exile, sweetie. And the only people who know me— who _really_ know me, yeah,” he pauses, grips the head of his cane tighter, knuckles turning white, “—was my family.”

_Was._

Past tense.

Tommy couldn’t hide the quiver in his voice when he asks, “Where are they now?”

“They’re gone, mate,” Alfie says. “Dead.” There is sadness in his voice, in his eyes— a sense of yearning.

The implication is strong.

This is why Tommy _knowing_ is bad for business. Because Tommy _knowing_  means that Tommy is family. Because Tommy _knowing_ reminds Alfie of home that he no longer has. This is why Alfie couldn’t kill Tommy even if he wants to. This is why Alfie has double-crossed him twice – because he wants Tommy to make the first move, to leave, to break away, to kill Alfie first. But Alfie miscalculated, because Tommy keeps coming back. Because Tommy couldn’t kill Alfie either.

Tommy is Alfie's homecoming, and he knows this, now. 

To know is to live with the consequences of knowing. The more one knows, the more one doesn’t know.

Tommy hates it.

“What do _you_ want, Thomas Shelby?” Alfie asks, instead.

Tommy pauses, before reaching over inside Alfie’s coat – and to his surprise, Alfie lets him. He pulls out the gun and cocks it, pressing the muzzle against Alfie’s forehead.

“Do it,” Alfie taunts. “Just fucking kill me and be done with it.”

“I hate you,” Tommy confesses. A broken whisper. He will blame it on the alcohol later, but for now, it feels good to have it out in the open.

“Good,” Alfie nods. “At least you’re honest, innit?” he says casually, as if there isn’t a gun pointed at his forehead. “So why don’t you just pull the fucking trigger?”

Tommy’s hand is shaking. His cheek is suddenly wet from warm tears that he doesn’t realize have welled up in his eyes. Alfie sighs, as if he is disappointed.

Probably Tommy is disappointed too, because he expected Alfie to shout at him, to punch him, to choke him roughly with those huge paws of his. Instead, Alfie reaches up to pry the gun off Tommy’s grip, and places the metal object on the table. He takes off his wide-brimmed hat and covers the gun with it, as if it is an offending article to witness upon. Tommy’s limp hands fall onto his lap, balled up into fists. He couldn’t remember the last time he has cried— on his own, let alone in front of someone.

Alfie doesn’t throw his handkerchief in disgust this time. Instead, he pulls it out from his pockets and lifts them up to Tommy’s face, gently drying the tears that are spilling out in waves. The pent-up anger, the sadness, the grief— all erupting in sobs that sends quakes throughout Tommy’s body.

“If it helps—,” Alfie adds, like an afterthought, “I _fucking_ hate you too.”

Tommy’s head snaps up at this admission.

The clock ticks. Once, twice.

From this angle, Tommy could see the flaky skin on Alfie’s face, around the edges of his hairline, his beard. He is so imperfect and human that it hurts. Yet the real word that Tommy has been looking for is ‘endearing’, and he knows that it’s the most ridiculous adjective to describe Alfie _fucking_ Solomons.

He has imagined Alfie Solomons like a bear, attacking his victims blindly with fervour, driven by hunger, inelegant and callous. And yet, he couldn’t believe how gentle Alfie is when their lips first brush against each other. As if he is uncertain.

Surely he must _know._

Surely he must know that Tommy would give him what he wants, if he asks? Even if it is forced?

Tommy deepens the kiss hungrily, earning a feral groan from Alfie. He lets go of his cane, falling with a loud clank on the floor, before his fingers reach up to grasp the back of Tommy’s head. Tommy expects Alfie to yank him away, or to push harder – but it just stays there, keeping it in place – _like an anchor,_ he realizes in his gut. Their bodies press against each other, separated by layers and layers of clothes – and Alfie must have realized this too, because he is the one who breaks away first and looks down breathlessly, before starting to tear mercilessly at Tommy’s suit, the buttons on his waistcoat, the latches on his trousers.

“Please don’t be gentle with me,” Tommy pleads. “I don’t deserve it.”

_Hurt me like I’ve been hurt before, a thousand times over so I could feel it._

Alfie pauses, only to inspect his handiwork. “Bedroom,” he says gruffly, a non-committal reply.

Tommy shakes his head. “The maids will know.” 

A grunt, then:

“For a man who knows so much, you don’t know what you deserve, Tommy Shelby,” Alfie says, before pushing him back onto the chair and pulls off his trousers. “I _could_ be the most violent man you’ve ever met, but that’s no reason why I _shouldn’t_ be gentle, _love,_ ” he warns, before kneeling at Tommy’s feet.  

Tommy is already half-hard when Alfie puts that infernal mouth on him. His tentative licks are as bold as a kitten’s— and Tommy is about to protest before Alfie really starts to devour him whole, his head moving up and down, slow, restrained, calculating. He holds Tommy down so he couldn’t move, even when his hips buck up involuntarily to meet Alfie’s rhythm. Alfie lifts Tommy’s hips and places his legs on Alfie’s shoulders, before he _really_ starts to work, probing him with his tongue, causing Tommy to gasp in shock. “Fuck, Alfie,” he keens, toes curling at the sensation as Alfie continues to taste him, while his other hand works on Tommy’s cock, slick from spit.

He doesn’t last long. Not when Alfie is assaulting his senses, concentrating purely to give him pleasure— and none of the pain that Tommy has requested. When Tommy comes, he comes all over his belly, but some of them have landed on Alfie’s beard too – and for some reason that image causes Tommy to let out a small, inadvertent chuckle.

“Hey, you fucking smiled," Alfie notes cheerfully. "A proper, fucking smile, eh?” he asks, as if he’s a child who has just found candy for free, and smiles a broad smile of his own. This is the most honest either has been with the other, and the most out of character. Even for a fleeting moment, but it happened. Alfie frowns again, and grunts— _again,_ before wiping Tommy clean with the same handkerchief from earlier, the one he has used to wipe Tommy’s tears. “I’ve never seen you smile. You’ve showed me more emotions today than all the years that I’ve fucking known you, Tommy Shelby.”

“I know _you,_ Alfie Solomons,” Tommy replies. “Maybe it’s time for you to know me too.”

Alfie merely answers him with another kiss.

 

* * *

 

Alfie Solomons is a contradiction.

He is everything Tommy isn’t – physically, emotionally; reminding himself of what he could have been but chose not to. He is broader, and insists that he is taller although Tommy swears they are of the same height. He is coarse, loud, and when he speaks he takes you through a thousand irrelevant anecdotes and metaphors before finally getting to the point.

Alfie Solomons is a contradiction, and Tommy thinks he could learn to love him for it.

 

* * *

 

 

 

> _"My enemy came nigh,_  
>  _And I_  
>  _Stared fiercely in his face._  
>  _My lips went writhing back in a grimace,_  
>  _And stern I watched him with a narrow eye._  
>  _Then, as I turned away, my enemy,_  
>  _That bitter heart and savage, said to me:_  
>  _"Some day, when this is past,_  
>  _When all the arrows that we have are cast,_  
>  _We may ask one another why we hate,_  
>  _And fail to find a story to relate._  
>  _It may seem then to us a mystery  
>  That we should hate each other."                    _
> 
> _Thus said he,_  
>  _And did not turn away,_  
>  _Waiting to hear what I might have to say,_  
>  _But I fled quickly, fearing had I stayed_  
>  _I might have kissed him as I would a maid."_
> 
> \- James Stephens, Hate
> 
>  

 

 .end

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Latin original of Catullus 85.
> 
> ETA: The ending poem, Hate (written by James Stephens, an Irish poet) was published in 1917, which will be contemporaneous with Peaky Blinders. And it's the most accurate poem to describe Alfie and Tommy, I feel like. I've always loved the poem, and to know that it fits with my two faves makes it more perfect.


End file.
